How About Now
by TheUSofCalzona
Summary: I finally figured out how I felt the elevator moment needed to carry on. This is my take of what happens after the doors shut. Season 7 Story


A/N - Had this on my LJ and wanted to bring it over!

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"How about now?"

How about now I run away screaming into the night? How about now I go find Mark and tell him how much damage he finally did to you because he couldn't keep it in his shorts? How about now I walk out of this elevator and never look back? How about now I go back to Africa to do what I went there to do? All those thoughts crossed my mind in the seconds after Callie said "How about now" to me. But weirdly what came out of my mouth wasn't that.

"How about now I take you to an exam room and show you the first image of the baby that I already love?" I asked; unable or unwilling, I'm not really sure which, to give my second chance up.

Even though I had been begging, pleading with her to the point of slightly obsessive levels over the last few weeks, the shock on her face was not surprising to me. I was a bailer in her eyes. She expected me to walk out of that elevator and get on a plane and leave her. Again.

"Arizona." She whispered, her mouth opening and closing a few times. She was unsure how to treat my clear commitment to something that she wasn't yet ok with herself.

"I get it." I whispered, looking down at the floor of the elevator a moment before back to her. "This means Mark will always be in our lives. This means no Spanish vacations without a care in the world. This means dirty diapers and spit up. This means a tiny human is going to enter the equation." I took a step forward, though there wasn't much room to do so. "But I'm ready to do that math."

A crushing, back snapping hug was Calliope's response to me. The feeling of her arms around me after the weeks and months of no contact was like rain on a baron field. I drank it, guzzled it, savored it. Calliope's face was in my neck where it belonged, where it always went when she hugged me.

"Thank you." She whispered into my skin.

"You're welcome." I whispered back, meaning it in very way.

Pulling back we both had to wipe running mascara from our faces. Our hands found each other out of their own volition. I knew I felt it, and I have a feeling so did Calliope, instant comfort and ease. The elevator door opened for the 5th time since we got on and we finally walked off of it.

"You don't have to do the sonogram tonight." Callie told me, her cheeks turning a warm pink.

"You are going to have to have it done soon anyway. And I am kinda awesome at it." I shrugged, thanking whatever higher being there was for the simple smile I got from Callie.

"Lead the way then Dr. Robbins." She gestured with her free hand.

Walking to one of the exam rooms I couldn't help but think, and by think I mean over-think. I had a bad habit of over-thinking things. What if Mark fought us for sole custody? What if Lexie couldn't handle this and left him again? What if he didn't want anything to do with the baby so that he could keep Lexie? What if he wouldn't leave us alone and tried to move in? What if he resented me for being the one in a relationship with Callie and tried to push me out? What if he wanted to father more kids with Callie down the road?

"Stop." Callie told me after we walked into the exam room. "I know that look on your pretty little face. You are doing damage control in your head for things that are never going to happen."

Damn if Callie couldn't read my over-thinking like a book. I tried walking away to turn the gel heater on but I got tugged back into Callie's waiting arms.

"Mark is my best friend. If he wants in the tiny human's life then I will let him take on as much fatherly duty as he wants. I want him to be with the baby 50% of the time because I know he will be a good dad." Callie tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, kissing my nose. "But when the tiny human is sick and comes to lay in bed with us, you are the person I want laying across from me singing off key lullabies."

I felt the tears spill down my cheeks and tilted my head forward to lay on Callie's collarbone to hid them. I hated when anyone saw me cry, it was a weakness my father never accepted. When I was younger he would always say, "If you're going to cry I'll take my belt off and I'll give you something to cry about." It only took a handful of times before you learned just to suck it up until you were safely in your room. A lesson Calliope's tiny human is never going to have to learn.

"You can cry and still be strong." Callie murmured, stoking my hair gently.

"I'm not crying." Lying over stupid things. Another fault that I needed to work on. "Alright I am." I said after a second. "But only because you made me." I said a bit petulantly, Callie always could bring out my inner child.

"We're good at making each other cry, aren't we?" Callie sighed, her voice full of regret.

"These are happy tears though." I assured her as I looked up. "I didn't know if I really meant what I said after the shooting until right now. I really do want to have kids with you now."

I have rarely, and even more rarely out of bed, put a smile like the one Callie's lips right now. I dry my eyes and hit the gel warmer on, I want to make this as pleasant as possible for her.

"Either pull your top up or take it off." I said as I grabbed a pair of gloves and pulled the bottle of gel out of the warmer. "And no I don't say that to all the girls." I preempt Callie's joke.

As soon as I placed the wand on Callie's skin the image on the screen takes both of our breath away. I have read a lot of these things, Callie has read a good amount too. But this was the first time we had seen one that would effect us so personally.

"It looks like you are between 4 and 5 weeks." I whispered as we both stood transfixed at the image before is. "Here is the neural tube." I said, pointing out what would be the baby's spine. Right now there wasn't much to see, a week more and there would be a lot more features to point out.

"I'm having a baby." Callie gripped my hand so hard for a second I thought she may have broken it. "I am really going to be a mother." She whispered, the awe of it all setting in.

"Yeah, you are." I couldn't help smile at the face she was making. Grabbing a few snaps I printed copies for her before I cleaned off the gel from her skin.

After Callie put her shirt back on we both stood there in the darkened room a moment. We didn't live together, in fact Callie was still living at Marks. I didn't really have a home and neither did she. I didn't know what the limits were anymore and I suspected Callie didn't know where to place them.

"I want to go home with you." Callie asked suddenly, her voice soft and laced with nerves.

"With me?" I whispered, not quite believing my ears.

"It's not home if you're not there." Callie said softly.

God it was so cheesy and so 8th grade middle school love note. But damn if it didn't work like a freaking charm. I have been waiting for Callie to ask me to go home, to have a home with her, since I left Seattle.

I pulled something out of my jacket and wrote on it before handing it over. I got a strange look until she looked down. The smile I got made my heart skip a beat, I loved that feeling more than almost anything.

"Prenatal vitamins." I shrugged. "I know you will need to see someone in obstetrics but these will get you though until you get in with someone."

Callie kissed my cheek before taking my hand and interlacing it with hers. "You buy the root beer and I'll by the pizza?" She offered, playing on our favorite meal, pizza and beer.

"Always." We walked back to the elevator hand in hand and mostly together. I thought. I hoped. I needed.

Tomorrow we could deal with Mark, Lexie, the thoughts of dirty diapers and god knows what else. Tomorrow we could plan for the future and talk about the drama and difficulties involved with three or four way parenting. Tomorrow we could try to figure this mess out.

But tonight? Tonight we had pizza and root beer and a mattress on the floor in our old bedroom. Tonight we had time to make up and promises to make in candle light against bare skin. Tonight we had months to make up for and I had penance to pay.

Tomorrow was about the tiny human, but tonight was about the mothers.

"I'm pregnant. It's yours." Callie blurted out about 15 seconds after she walked into Mark's apartment. The night before with Arizona, making up and doing more than making out, recharged her in a way only the PED's surgeon could. They weren't not over all our issues yet, but they were getting there.

Mark brought the beer in his hand to hips lips and emptied it in one go. No this was not happening. Callie was his best friend, she would not do this to him.

"Are we keeping it?" He asked, knowing if she was then he would damn well be a father to him or her. He had lost chances in the past but he wouldn't lose this one. He trusted Callie to at least cut him in to the tiny human's life.

"We are." Callie was thankful he wasn't screaming at her or asking her to get out or get rid of it. She knew those were slim chances but they were chances none the less.

"Three things. One Lexie is going to kill me for sleeping with you. Two Arizona is going to kill me for knocking you up. Three your father is going to kill me for impure thoughts about his baby girl." Mark said a little darkly. "So please have me cremated and put in the baby's room so you can tell him or her stories about the man their father was."

"Oh Mark." Callie sighed and shook her head. "They won't kill you, it's too predictable. Daddy and Arizona might hold you down while Lexie takes off your boy parts with a butter knife though."

"Fantastic." Mark walked over to the fridge and got his third beer of the night. How was this happening now? Lexie just told him she loved him, things were going really right in his life. "I want to see the squirt every day. I mean assuming I am not in the hospital or on your mantle in a bucket."

"Arizona and I thought up a custody arrangement this morning." Callie took out the legal pad they wrote on. "First 6 months the Tiny Human will live solely with Arizona and me. I will be breast feeding at night and during the day. It's just easier."

"Fair enough." Mark said. "But I get to come over and help out and stuff right?"

"Of course." Callie sat down at his breakfast bar. "6 months to a year you will be having him every other weekend and 3 hours one week night. Ease him into being with someone else at night and all that."

Mark nodded his agreement. He wanted the smoothest system possible for their child. He wanted both he, and he really, really hoped Lexie, and Callie and Arizona to all get to see the squirt a lot. "So far I'm good with it."

"Starting at 1 year we would take three months turns with him or her living with us and the other parent having him on the weekends. So that way We don't miss out on weekend time and you don't miss the daily stuff."

Mark had never heard of that before but it really was a good idea. Way better than the usual agreement where the kid lived with one set of parents and the other only saw them a few days a month. "Arizona thought that up didn't she?" He asked, laughing a bit when he got a nod.

"Joint holidays so we both get to see the excitement and not have to cart him or her all over creation." Callie went on. "And if one of us is off shift and the others are working we think if that parent wants they should take the baby so he's not in day care when he doesn't have to be. " Callie finished.

"You know Callie I have to admit it's a really good plan." Mark tossed the third beer can in the trash. "I mean as soon as you leave I am going to freak out. And telling Lexie is going to suck. Telling our family is going to make me want to hang myself. And dealing with McPerk over every detail is going to make me wish murder was legal. But all in all I think this might work."

Callie walked over and gave Mark a big hug, putting her face in his chest for a moment. "First off I will give you $50 if you call Arizona "McPerk" to her face. And thank you for being a good man about this. I was a little worried about...I don't even remember what now, but I was worried."

"You are my best friend, don't tell Derek, and the only person in the world I really trust 100%, don't tell Lexie, and I couldn't live without you, don't tell Arizona." Mark said softly, rubbing her back.

Callie snorted, shaking her head a moment. She put a photo in his hand, one of the ones Arizona printed the night before. "That is the baby. Arizona did a sonogram last night. But I promise I will let you see the rest of them. It was just kind of a see if the stick turning pink was right kinda things."

"You and Arizona needed to have a moment without me. I get it." Mark muttered, stroking her hair for a second. "Give me a day or two to tell Lexie and then we can talk more." He knew telling her was going to take mayor balls.

"Yeah." Callie pulled back, rubbing her eyes and stifling a yawn. "I am going to go back to the apartment, to my girlfriend and our cocoon until we both have to work tomorrow."

"If I get kicked out can I come over?" Mark muttered, turning red around the ears.

"Yeah." Callie laughed deeply. "But knock first and wait for one of us to open the door."

"I guess I have to do stuff like that now." Mark grunted a little.

"After what you did? Oh yeah." Callie kissed his cheek before going back to her girlfriend.


End file.
